Four Technologies Defining the Future: What We Know and What Comes Next

The Glitch in the Code: Why Baker Mayfield's MVP Run Is a Warning to Every Futurist

We, as a species, are obsessed with prediction. We build elaborate models to forecast stock markets, election outcomes, and even the weather, all in a desperate attempt to tame the terrifying randomness of the universe. In my world, the world of technology and data, we call this "predictive analytics." We feed algorithms mountains of historical data, train them to recognize patterns, and then ask them to tell us what happens next. And most of the time, they’re pretty good. Until they’re not.

Every so often, a system produces an output so wildly unexpected, so contrary to the input data, that it forces you to question the model itself. A glitch in the code. A beautiful, chaotic anomaly that reminds us that the most complex systems are not sterile laboratories; they are living ecosystems, influenced by variables we haven't yet learned how to quantify. Right now, the National Football League is giving us one of the most spectacular case studies in predictive failure I’ve ever seen.

The case study's name is Baker Mayfield.

If you had fed a predictive model the data on Mayfield’s career arc just two years ago, it would have spit out a grim forecast: "journeyman," "talented backup," "career decline." Here was a former No. 1 overall pick, the supposed savior of the Cleveland Browns, who had been unceremoniously run out of town. He landed in Carolina, got benched, then cut. He had a flash-in-the-pan moment with the Rams, a thrilling comeback that felt more like a Hollywood ending to a tragic story than the beginning of a new chapter. The data screamed that his peak was behind him.

But data doesn't measure grit. It can't quantify the chip on a shoulder. And it certainly can't predict the alchemy that happens when the right person finds the right system at the right time. Because today, Baker Mayfield isn't a backup. He has the third-shortest odds to be the NFL's Most Valuable Player. When I first saw that, I honestly just sat back in my chair, speechless. This is the kind of breakthrough that reminds me why I got into this field in the first place. It’s not about confirming what we already know; it’s about being blindsided by what we thought was impossible.

The Unpredictable Variable

Let's look at the numbers, because they tell a fascinating story of defiance. Through the early part of this season, Mayfield ranks near the top of the league in passing yards (4th), touchdowns (T-4th), and has a ridiculously low interception rate. He’s second in the league in explosive plays—that’s completions of 20 or more yards. But the most telling statistic is this: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are the first team in NFL history to win four of their first five games on a game-winning score in the final minute. Four times, the game was on the line. Four times, the guy everyone wrote off delivered.

This is where the models completely fall apart. Mayfield’s career isn’t a smooth sine wave you can plot on a graph; it’s a chaotic system, like a particle that suddenly tunnels through an impenetrable barrier. His story is a powerful metaphor for disruptive innovation. Most breakthroughs don’t come from the established players—the "blue-chip" quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen, who are expected to succeed. They often come from the fringe, from the ideas and people that the establishment discarded. Mayfield is the startup founder who was told his idea would never work, now running circles around the legacy corporations.

We have metrics for almost everything in sports now. One of them is "Expected Points Added per dropback"—in simpler terms, it's a way of measuring how much each individual play a quarterback makes actually helps his team put points on the board. Mayfield is currently ranked 7th in the league in this metric. The data is finally catching up to the reality, but it can only describe what is happening, not why. What is it about certain individuals that allows them to so thoroughly defy the data that once defined them? Is resilience a quantifiable metric we’re still failing to model, or is it something more elemental, something that will always elude our spreadsheets?

The implications of this go far beyond a football field. We use predictive algorithms in hiring, in college admissions, in loan applications. We feed a person's history into a system and let it decide their future. But how many potential geniuses, artists, and leaders are we discarding because their data doesn't fit the established pattern of success? How many Baker Mayfields are we labeling as "career decline" before they've even had a chance to find their Tampa Bay? It's a moment of ethical consideration we can't afford to ignore. We have to be careful that our tools for predicting the future don't end up building a less imaginative one.

A Cascade of Anomalies

And here’s the most exciting part: it's not just Mayfield. The entire system is experiencing a cascade of anomalies. The presumed front-runners are faltering. Mahomes and the Chiefs are 2-3. Lamar Jackson is injured. The certainties are crumbling, creating a vacuum where new possibilities can emerge. Look at Dak Prescott in Dallas, putting up elite numbers while his team's defense ranks dead last in the league. He’s single-handedly keeping them afloat, an act of sheer individual will overriding a systemic failure.

Or look at Daniel Jones in New York, a quarterback who was once a punchline, now boasting some of the most efficient and statistically excellent numbers in the league. His sack rate is the lowest in the NFL, a testament to a complete reinvention of his game. It’s a beautiful, chaotic mess that proves our neat-and-tidy predictive models are just sophisticated guesses, because you can’t code for narrative, you can't build an algorithm for a last-minute game-winning drive when the pressure is immense and the entire world has written you off.

This reminds me of the early days of the internet. The established giants—the IBMs and the AT&Ts—had all the data. Their models told them that the future was in mainframes and closed networks. But they couldn't predict the explosion of creativity that would come from a decentralized, chaotic web built by outsiders and idealists. They couldn't model the human desire to connect and create. The NFL MVP race is a microcosm of that same dynamic. The "value" isn't just in the raw stats; it's in the context, the story, and the impact. It’s in doing more with less, in lifting a team beyond the sum of its parts, in rewriting your own code in real time.

So, what does this all mean for us? It means we should remain skeptical of any system that claims to have all the answers. It means we should look for the anomalies, the outliers, the glitches—because that’s where the future is being born. Whether it's a quarterback nobody wanted or a technology nobody understands, the most powerful forces of change are the ones the models never see coming.

The Human Element is the Ultimate Disruptor

In the end, this isn't just a story about football. It's a story about the stubborn, beautiful, and infuriatingly unpredictable nature of human potential. We can build all the AI and machine learning models we want, but we will never fully account for the variable of the human heart. The next paradigm-shifting breakthrough, whether in science, art, or business, won't come from the person with the perfect résumé or the idea with the most predictable ROI. It will come from someone who was told they were finished. It will come from a Baker Mayfield. And that, to me, is the most hopeful data point of all.